The vehicle critical hit table includes "Stabilizers" and "Weapon Malfunction" criticals that are ignored when there are no weapons in a location. Total Warfare notes that inapplicable critical hits are to ignored and "Weapon Malfunction" is clearly covered by this instruction. The problem is that stabilizers are not covered in TechManual and the wording in Total Warfare is not helpful.
In a previous question the answer confirmed that Stabilizers only exist when a weapon (and not equipment, such as AMS) is mounted in that location.
https://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php/topic,36614.msg849689.html#msg849689I cannot find any supporting rules indicating that stabilizers are only installed when weapons are present. This combines with the Total Warfare (p. 195) wording:
Stabilizer: A vehicle’s weapon stabilizers help it fire straight while moving. When this system takes a critical hit, double the attacker movement modifier for all attacks from weapons mounted in the location struck. Weapons mounted elsewhere in the vehicle are not affected. Second and subsequent hits to the stabilizer in the same location have no further effect.
One of the following should be true:
1. A stabilizer never exists in a location without weapons and should be ignored for critical hit purposes, proceeding to the next critical down the list.
2. A Stabilizer is always present because no rules exist to remove/install it and per TW, it can be hit multiple times and interrupts critical progression down the list.
3. A Stabilizer is present with weapons and may be hit multiple times interrupting progression down the critical hit list.
4. ???
Clarification (Errata?) in Tech Manual to indicate when/if stabilizers are installed may be needed. Total Warfare's stabilizer vehicle critical hit could also benefit from clarification.
